Late fightback not enough for the Blues as they suffer first Premier League defeat of the season, and back-to-back defeats in all competitions, away at Bournemouth
FA Premier League
Saturday 02 November 2024, 15.00 KO
City: Ederson, Walker, Gvardiol, Akanji, Ake (Lewis 73), Kovacic, Gundogan, Silva (Doku), Nunes, Foden, Haaland
Unused: Ortega, McAtee, Savinho, O'Reilly, Simpson-Pusey, Wright
Goals: Dias (5), Cancelo (27), Mahrez (64), Sterling (86)
Booked: Walker
Referee: Michael Oliver
Man of the match: Ederson
Manchester City travelled to Bournemouth away on Saturday afternoon looking to maintain their position at top of the table, as well as capitalise on Arsenal’s defeat to Newcastle earlier. However, a disciplined Bournemouth side had different ideas as the Cherries handed City a shock defeat just three days after the Blues were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Tottenham.
Despite injury concerns, both Josko Gvardiol and Manuel Akanji were in the starting lineup for City. Savio, Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne were named as substitutes despite also struggling with fitness. Ederson returned in goal having been replaced by Stefan Ortega for Wednesday night’s match, and Erling Haaland also returned as the sole striker having been an unused substitute in the previous game.
Similar to the match against Spurs, City were immediately put on the back foot by Bournemouth who had come out with a clear intention. Early chances saw the Cherries put the Blues under a significant amount of pressure and within 2 minutes a double save had already had to be made by Ederson. The pressure became too high for City though and once again the Blues conceded early following defensive errors leading the ball straight into the path of Bournemouth striker Antoine Semenyo to give the home side the lead after just 9 minutes.
With the Blues once again behind, a response was very much needed but in the first half it couldn’t look any further from happening for City as they seemed to struggle to get close to the Bournemouth goal and were constantly pinned back by counter attacks. Kovacic had an attempt deflected wide for a corner and a Haaland attempt from the half hour mark went just about narrowly wide but perhaps the most out of character stat for the Blues was their lack of shots on target having gone the entire duration of the first half without finding a shot on goal. Concerns were clear for Guardiola and questions were being asked.
The second half would’ve been where many thought the Blues would sort themselves out but it was once again a similar story with constant struggle to find the goal and frustration in attack.
City’s pressure would once again come back to haunt them as they soon enough found themselves defending a counter attack once more and this time unsuccessfully with the ball being crossed through the defence to find the foot of Bournemouth’s Evanilson to double the Cherries’ advantage and put the Blues into all kinds of trouble.
It soon became clear that City would need to up their game significantly if they were going to find a result out of this difficult situation and so the changes were made with Rico Lewis coming in for Nathan Ake at the 73rd minute.
Increasing pressure from City was frustrating but they finally managed to get a goal back in the 81st minute when Ilkay Gundogan’s cross found the head of Gvardiol to make it 2-1 and set the game up for a tense finish.
Jeremy Doku replaced Gundogan in the hunt for the equaliser with a desperate onslaught for the Blues and very close chances came in the 6 minutes of stoppage time with a double block made from shots by Haaland with one striking the post and a shot just narrowly wide from Phil Foden right at the death but it ultimately wasn’t to be as referee Michael Oliver blew the final whistle shortly after.
With City’s defeat and Liverpool’s 2-1 victory over Brighton it means that the Blues no longer sit top of the table and will be in 2nd on 23 points. This was an off day for City but they will do everything they can to make sure they don’t have many similar days throughout the season and will look to get to the international break to allow some recovery for injury hit players, with two matches to play until then.